Marc Munroe Dion: Living the greenest kind of life

Finally, I’m ecologically responsible. Hey, for years I’ve been looking directly up the long noses of the recyclers, the "green" folks.

Marc Munroe Dion

Finally, I’m ecologically responsible.

Hey, for years I’ve been looking directly up the long noses of the recyclers, the "green" folks. They hated me back when I used to hunt. They hated me when I bought a 6-cylinder 4-wheel drive pick-up.
But I been thinking about it, and I realize that I no longer have to bear the insultingly superior looks of those guys who take a cloth bag to the grocery store.
You know why?
Because I live in a tenement, the "greenest" form of housing ever devised.
How "green" is my tenement?
Check it out.
Were any trees cut down to build my tenement?
Yeah. About 105 years ago. Those trees would be dead now, anyway. At least I think so.
And don’t forget that my tenement doesn’t have a big, wasteful yard. You open my front door, you’re standing on the sidewalk. This means no wasteful irrigation, no petroleum-based fertilizers and no run-off of murderous pesticides into local waters.
Sure, maybe I drive a big vehicle, but I LIVE in the city where I work. My commute takes three minutes. If you own a car the size of a toaster oven, but you drive 20 miles one way to work, you’re still doing more damage to the environment than I am.
Television? I have one, but it’s not one of those huge, wasteful big screens that use more power when they’re off than mine does when it’s on. You put a big screen in my small living room, you’ll get radiation burns sitting on the couch. I got a phone, too. One phone. It’s in the kitchen. Not to worry, though, you can hear it ring in every room. Hell, in the summer, when my windows are open, you can stand on the sidewalk and hear my phone ring.
Got bathrooms? Me too. I have one. I bet you have 1.5 bathrooms, don’t you? Just so you can waste more precious water.
Is your single family home new? Great. They cut down half a forest just so YOU could have a new home. Doesn’t make any difference how much you recycle, you’re still a serial tree-killer. I bet you have a fireplace, too.
Do I have heat? Yup. Two space heaters. One in the living room, one in the parlor. In the winter, except for Christmas week, I close off the parlor. How’s that for energy efficient?
How many people live in your house. Two? Three? Four?
I live on the second floor of a three-decker with eight occupants, all of us sharing the same tiny piece of land, all of us needing no new trees to be killed.
If you live in the suburbs and you want a loaf of bread, you’ve got to drive, like, three miles, right? That’s a waste of gas, my would-be green brother.
At the corner of my street, there’s an aptly named corner store. I need a loaf of bread, I walk to the corner. On my feet! It’s the green thing to do and walking is good for your heart.
Do you belong to a gym? Sure, and you DRIVE there to exercise, don’t you?
Not me. I get plenty of exercise hauling laundry up and down the stairs, hauling groceries up and trash down. And it’s free!
Recycling? I drink Guinness Stout. I leave the bottles, in the six-pack holder, out on the sidewalk the night before trash day. At about 6 a.m., a guy pushing a shopping cart comes by and takes the bottles. He gets the deposit money and I get the good feeling of being green and helping your fellow humans.
Hell, every few years my whole tenement gets recycled as tenants change.
I’ll tell you something else.
I call it "my" tenement, but it belongs to someone else. I just rent.
Yeah. You guessed it.